Dr. Chris Kahlenborn is the lead author of the Mayo Clinic Proceeding’s article cited below. Kahlenborn testified before the FDA in June of 2000 regarding the link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer. May 2010 marked the 50th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the birth control pill in the United States. Newspapers and magazines around the country ran stories on this, mostly extolling the social and medical benefits of the pill. This theme was bolstered by a recent communiqué from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) which noted: “The pill remains one of the...

Raquel Welch has blamed the Pill for the decline of the institution of marriage. The Hollywood actress said the widespread use of oral contraceptives had led to a breakdown in sexual morality and fuelled the growth of rampant promiscuity among the young. Miss Welch, 69, said the situation has grown so grave that 'these days nobody seems able to keep it in their pants or honour a commitment' While she argued that it carried some benefits, she said the enduring legacy of the Pill has been social anarchy. Miss Welch has been a sex symbol since she sprang to...

Isn't it interesting that as the United States of America approaches the 50th anniversary of this nation's most popular recreational drug, the birth control pill, special interest media is ginning up the presses — or in this case, the web sites — with all sorts of ideas for the next 50 years. A sampling of what America's birth control worshippers are saying may give one pause to rethink. For example, on May 3, the Los Angeles Biomedical Research institute (LA BioMed) announced "that it has received $1.5 million in grant funding to study a contraceptive for men that uses a...

Judging by the laudatory articles on the birth control pill popping up all over the Web in recent days, one might conclude that the pill was in fact the greatest invention since sliced multigrain bread. One such article, written by professor and author Elaine Tyler May, appears in The Washington Post. May writes: Today, we celebrate both motherhood and the pill. It is Mother's Day, and it is the 50th anniversary of the day the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would approve the pill — though the dream of an oral contraceptive is much older. The birth control...

MAUSTON, Wis. (AP) -- Mike Taake has taught sex education for 30 years, and he says he knows what doesn't work: just telling kids to wait. The Mauston High School health teacher has used abstinence-only and comprehensive curriculums, and he said students need all the information they can get about sex to make the best choices. But teaching them about contraceptives could land him and other teachers in court...

Talk about odd bedfellows. An unlikely group of lawmakers and organizations has come together to pitch a bill this session to change sex education in Utah. It's a bill that has a Republican senator, a Democratic representative, the Planned Parenthood Action Council (PPAC) and the state PTA working together. "It's just turned into the most amazing process where people are working together on both sides of the aisle to make sure we're doing whatever we can to make sure our kids have information to keep them safe," said Melissa Bird, executive director of PPAC. Now, state law allows educators to...

President Obama’s crusade to enact health-care reform legislation is nearing its climactic battle in the US Senate. How should Catholic Americans look upon this legislative struggle? The US bishops have consistently voiced their support for health-care reform, while insisting that the legislation must include some language ensuring against public support for abortion. In the House of Representatives their lobbying had its desired effect, and the “Stupak Amendment” gave the bishops a bill they could support. In the Senate a pro-life amendment was rejected. Still the US bishops’ conference has clung to the bare hope that some acceptable language might be...

Families with more than 10 children are becoming the norm among a group of traditionalist US Christians. The so-called Quiverfull families believe they are carrying out God's work, and providing a new generation of moral leaders. The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott went to Illinois to meet some of them. The way Psalm 127 talks about children has an almost military sound. It describes them as "an inheritance, and arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior," adding, "happy is he whose quiver is full of them". Many Quiverfull families do indeed sense looming battles for Christians, and often...

For those who haven’t followed it, there’s a battle shaping up over religious liberty at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, N.C. At issue is the college’s ability to refuse to provide contraceptive coverage in its health insurance plan. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Charlotte, N.C., ruled that Belmont Abbey discriminated against female employees by refusing to cover prescription contraceptives. “As a Roman Catholic institution, Belmont Abbey College is not able to and will not offer nor subsidize medical services that contradict the clear teaching of the Catholic Church,” said the college’s president, William Thierfelder, at the time. In March,...

(edit)Scientists say the hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a female's interest in masculine men - and make boyish men more attractive. Dr Alexandra Alvergne, of the University of Sheffield, says the Pill could also be altering the way women pick mates - and could have long term implications for society. 'There are many obvious benefits of the Pill for women, but there is also the possibility that the Pill has psychological side effects that we are only just discovering,' she said. 'We need further studies to find out what these are.' (edit) Scientists have long known that a...

Estrogen Â– from artificial contraception pills, consumed daily by tens of millions of women Â– is making its way through sewage treatment plants and severely pollutes our waterways with chilling consequences. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar reacted to an August report that emissions from coal-fired power plants have led to widespread mercury pollution in our rivers and streams by saying: "this science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation's waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers." Who, after all, wants toxic levels of mercury in our rivers? But mercury is not...

" chemist who led to the invention of the birth control pill says he regrets the demographic catastrophe that has resulted from people using the contraceptive device to separate reproduction from sexuality, reports Baptist Press. Carl Djerassi, the 85-year-old Austrian chemist who was one of three whose formulation of synthetic hormones paved the way for the pill, wrote an opinion piece in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard lamenting the way the pill has been used. Austria's population now includes more people over age 65 than under 15, and Djerassi said the country soon will face an "impossible situation" as the...

The oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin are the top-selling pharmaceutical line for Bayer HealthCare, largely as a result of marketing that presents them as much more than mere pregnancy prevention. Yaz, in particular, the top-selling birth control pill in the United States, owes much of its popularity to multimillion-dollar ad campaigns that have promoted the drug as a quality-of-life treatment to combat acne and severe premenstrual depression. Yaz, a newer sister drug to Yasmin, contains less estrogen. The franchise had worldwide sales of about $1.8 billion last year, based on Bayer’s successful positioning of Yasmin and Yaz as the go-to...

A new study is suggesting a “strong” link between the religiosity of a state’s residents and the teen birth rate there. Though only half of the states listed among the ten most conservatively religious also appear in the list of ten states with the highest teen birth rates, researchers behind the latest study say increased religiosity in residents of states in the U.S. strongly predicted a higher teen birth rate. “With data aggregated at the state level, conservative religious beliefs strongly predict U.S. teen birth rates, in a relationship that does not appear to be the result of confounding by...

Wed Jul 22, 5:39 pm ET NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Oral contraceptives behave differently in the bodies of obese women than in normal-weight women, new research shows, suggesting that they may not work as well in preventing pregnancy. But more research is needed before any recommendations can be made on contraceptive use based on a woman's body mass index (BMI), a standard measure of the ratio between height and weight, Dr. Alison B. Edelman of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland and her colleagues say. There's been some evidence to suggest that the birth control pill may be...

Catholic villagers in Thua Thien-Hue province say they have tried their best to follow Church teaching on the use of artificial birth control methods in the face of the government's two-child policy. Huong Toan villagers, just like Vietnamese elsewhere in the country, are required to have no more than two children per family since 1994, when village authorities launched a nationwide family planning program. Families with more than two children have to pay rice to the government as a fine. Many local Catholics say they have done their best to remain true to Church teaching but some have had to...

A cancer awareness group says as schools pass out birth control to young girls, they are failing to notify them about an increased health risk. According to Karen Malec, president of The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, young girls who are prescribed estrogen+progestin-based birth control by their school nurses are at an increased risk for breast, cervix, and liver cancer. World Health Organization conducted a study in 2005 and found that type of birth control carcinogenic. "In other words, they cause cancer in human beings," she notes. "And they assign these drugs the highest level of carcinogenicity -- the highest level...

Bristol Palin's new abstinence campaign shines a light on the Republican Party's unhealthy attitude about sex and desire. BY MEGHAN MCCAIN The first time I ever heard about oral sex was during the Lewinsky scandal. Mostly, I remember being confused by President Clinton’s response—“it depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”. When it comes to sex, politicians face all sorts of double standards: who is allowed to have sex with whom, what constitutes sex, and whether it’s appropriate, to name a few. Candie’s Foundation’s announcement that they were partnering with Bristol Palin to promote an abstinence-only campaign has caused...

The Gift of Children by Mary Anne Hackett * I frequently give consideration to the problem in today’s anti-child society and how we might combat the terrible devaluation of children that is so prevalent in our country and worldwide. I believe that the attitudes we are witnessing are the result of the acceptance of contraception. With contraception, you remove God from your marriage and from your decision. People no longer consider what might please God, but rather what will please you. You begin to think you can decide when you will have a child, when a child fits into your...